Europe

Poland

June 10, 2015: Pro-American Polish President and Cabinet members resigned after the release of tapes recorded at a 5 Star Warsaw Restaurant, which inspired the name “Waitergate”. The tapes were of them trash-talking America. Rachel Maddow explained it June 12.

Italy

Malta

The “Golden Visa” program has drawn wealthy Russians to the small Mediterranean island. The Dubai-ification of Malta OCCRP “Three Russians who obtained Maltese passports in 2016 – Arkady Volozh, Boris Mints, and Alexander Nesis – are on the so-called Kremlin List, published by the United States on Jan. 29, 2018. It is not a sanctions list, but identifies Russia’s richest businessmen, with assets estimated at more than $1 billion each, who are believed to be close to President Vladimir Putin. Volozh developed Yandex, a major search engine sometimes known as “Russia’s Google,” and remains its main shareholder. Mints, one of the other new Cypriot citizens on the Kremlin list, owns an investment holding company, O1 Group Ltd., on the island, and had a net worth in 2017 of $1.3 billion, according to Forbes. The billionaire has business ties to Nesis, the president of the private equity ICT Group, which he founded in 1991. Nesis’ fortune is valued at around $1.9 billion, according to Forbes. He is a minority shareholder in the Mints company O1 Properties, and is co-owner of Otkritie Bank, now Russia’s largest private banking group by assets.

Since 2010, Mints has been chairman of the Russian Union of Industrialists​ ​and​ ​Entrepreneurs. In the mid ‘90s, he served for two years as Head of the Main Directorate of the State Property Committee, a crucial political position in post-Soviet Russia. He also served in 2000-2001 as chairman of the oppositional Political Party of the Union of Rightist Forces.

One of Sliema’s new Russian residents is Dmitry Golomovzy, a shipping magnate who has been a Maltese citizen since 2015, as reported by Galizia. Galizia reported that Golomovzy is also a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean country where – just like in Malta – the Golden Visa program is run by Henley & Partners, one of two major international companies involved in the business.

Saudi Arabians have also invested in Maltese citizenship. The best-known is Waleed al-Ibrahim, chairman and once chief owner of the Middle East Broadcasting Center(MBC), founded in London in 1991 and now the largest media company in the Middle East and North Africa. Al-Ibrahim obtained his Maltese citizenship in 2016. In November 2017, he was swept up in a Saudi anti-corruption raid ordered by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and detained at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh. According to the Washington Post, Al-Ibrahim remains the MBC’s director, but it is now majority-owned by the government.”